USA > South Carolina > A sketch of the history of South Carolina to the close of the proprietary government by the revolution of 1719. With an appendix containing many valuable records hitherto unpublished > Part 8
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with corn or peas, for every person in his family ; and that slothful and loitering persons should be put in charge of the industrious planters for the purpose of working for their own maintenance and the benefit of the community.
It will serve to exhibit the condition and progress. of the colony during West's first administration, to notice the acts passed by parliament and those pro- posed to them by the council, and which no doubt was also passed.
October, 1671 .- The regulation of the secretary's fees-The regulation of the marshal's fees-The rates and "scantings" of merchantable pipe staves, requiring the appointment by council of one or more " viewers" to examine all pipe staves when "any difference should happen upon payments or exchange between party and party in the province of Caro- lina," and the fees allowed for performance of such duties-The modeling of the proceedings of council in the determining of difference between party and party.
December, 1671 .-- Acts relating to masters trading with servants, servants with servants, and servants purloining their masters' goods-Servants coming from England, how long to serve, and servants com- ing from Barbadoes, how long they shall serve from their respective arrivals-That none may retail any drink without license-For the speedy payment of the lords proprietors' debts; "and at what rates artificers and laborers shall work therein." This is the first act of parliament which we find to be rati- fied by the proprietors in England.
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At a meeting of the grand council on 14th Decem- ber, 1671, Sir John Yeamans having been made a landgrave by the proprietors, claimed, according to the Fundamental Constitutions, to be vice-palatine, and consequently governor of the province. But the council were so well satisfied with the administration of Col. West, that they "resolved and advised (nemine contra dicente) that it is not safe or warrant- able to remove the government as it is at present, until a signal nomination from the palatine, or further orders or directions be received from the lords pro- prietors."
But Yeamans had already been commissioned gov- ernor on the 21st August, when the proprietors had become aware of the death of Col. Sayle. He was the son of Robert Yeamans, alderman of Bristol, whose life and property were sacrificed by his ad- herence to the royal cause. At the time of the colonization of Carolina, Major John Yeamans was residing in Barbadoes, whither he had emigrated in quest of fortune. When he solicited a tract of land from the proprietors for establishing a settlement with a large number of persons from Barbadoes, he was received with favor as a man of influence and energy ; and together with their commission as, governor of Clarendon county, there was also bestowed upon him from the king the title of baronet. Being indebted for his honors to the friendship of the proprietors, he evinced an active zeal for the promotion of their interests in the province. But after a careful man- agement of his colony in Clarendon for four or five years, he returned to Barbadoes; and the same desire
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of riches that had guided him hitherto, led him thence to the Ashley River soon after the arrival of. Sayle. Here he obtained grants of land, and en- gaged in the exportation of lumber and provisions to the British islands in the West Indies. He was the first who introduced negro slaves into Carolina, whom he brought from Barbadoes, in 1671, to cultivate his plantation on Ashley River. Having left Charles Town after the refusal of the council to entertain his claims to the government, he did not return until he had received his commission as governor of Caro- lina south and west of Cape Carteret. On the 19th April, 1672, he was proclaimed at Charles Town, and a proclamation was also immediately issued " to dis- solve all parliaments and parliamentary connections heretofore had or made in this province," and all the freemen in the colony were summoned to assemble on the 20th to elect a new parliament. Twenty members were accordingly elected, who chose from their number Stephen Bull, Christopher Portman, Richard Conant, Ralph Marshall, and John Robinson, members of the grand council. The deputies were Col. West, Capt. Thos. Gray, Capt. Jno. Godfrey, Maurice Mathews and William Owens.
The instructions sent from the proprietors on 16th December, 1671, to Sir John Yeamans and the coun- cil, required them to govern by the Fundamental Constitutions, temporary laws and instructions pre- viously sent, observing that in cases of difference, those of the latest date should be followed; that nothing should be debated or voted in the parliament " but what is proposed to them by the council ;" and
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that on all occasions they should facilitate Capt. Halsted's explorations in the province.
The first acts of the new administration were directed to the accurate survey and recording of the lands hitherto granted to settlers, with a view to the more definite claims of quit-rent, and the introduc- tion of more of the forms of the Fundamental Con- stitutions. Stricter regulations were ordained against leaving the colony. Those who should desire to do so were obliged to set up their names in the secre- tary's office; and if any person objected to their de- parture, he wrote his name within twenty-one days beneath the names so set up, and the reasons for his. objection were heard by council before a permission to leave could be obtained. It was resolved (perhaps as a check upon Sir John Yeamans) that for the better safety of the settlement, the governor should live in town. The following acts were at this time proposed to the parliament :- 1. For the uniform building of Charles Town. 2. For building a bridge on the southward part of Charles Town. 3. An additional act against fugitive persons or absentees without license. 4. Against selling or disposing of arms or ammunition to the Indians.
Col. West, besides the superintendence of the planta- tion and stores of the proprietors, was made " register of all writings and contracts." In June, 1672, at his request the council resolved that twenty persons from the debtors to the proprietors should furnish servants to cut and prepare a cargo of lumber for the Blessing at its next arrival. On the other hand, Gov. Yea- mans was entering upon plans which demanded an
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increased expenditure of the private resources of the proprietors. The colony was placed in a state of security against invasion. Cannon were mounted at "New Town, on Stono Creek," and a " great gun" was fired at Charles Town on the approach of any vessel. The inhabitants were armed, and six com- panies enrolled under Lieutenant-col. Godfrey. The toils of cultivating the fields were borne chiefly by white servants from England, or Indian slaves pur- chased from their enemies; yet while the settlers could scarcely raise sufficient provisions for their own consumption, Sir John Yeamans was engaged in buy- ing from them their produce, and exporting it at great gain to the island of Barbadoes. The pro- prietors, instead of being repaid, incurred " a debt of several thousand pounds" before the end of 1673, and were still solicited for further aid and a stock of cattle from England.
Ten years had passed since the grant of their charter, and the same causes of dissatisfaction that had existed at Chowan and Cape Fear; now also ex- isted on the Ashley. The proprietors became un- willing to send any more supplies with no hope of repayment ; " for we thought it time," they said, "to give over a charge which was like to have no end, and the country was not worth having at that rate." They contrasted the "care, fidelity, and prudence" of Col. West with the ill management of Yeamans, who had immediately "altered the face of things," and seemed to aim at bringing the colony to no other pitch than to be subservient, in provisions and tim- ber, to the interest of Barbadoes." They therefore
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revoked their commission to him, and created West a landgrave and governor in April, 1674. Sir John Yeamans had previously retired in feeble health to Barbadoes, where he died in August, possessed of considerable wealth, but having lost much of the reputation which he enjoyed when he entered upon the government of the colony at Charles Town.
The necessities of the people at the close of Yea- mans' administration were of so pressing a nature as to occasion great unquietness among the settlers. Capt. Florence O'Sullivan had been the first sur- veyor-general of the province, in which office he was succeeded by John Culpepper, in 1671. During the commotions in Charles Town, which were fomented chiefly by Culpepper, the colonists were anticipating an invasion from the Spaniards of St. Augustine. It is said that O'Sullivan had been put in charge of a cannon on the island which now bears his name, in order to alarm the town in case of the appearance off the bar of any Spanish vessels. But being ready to perish with hunger there, he deserted his charge, and took part with Culpepper, in the disturbances at Charles Town, when he was arrested by the marshal for seditious conduct, and required to give security for his future good behavior .* Culpepper afterward retired into North Carolina, and was soon involved in political commotions there. To alleviate the imme-
* We have no clear information of the nature and object of these commotions. The story of O'Sullivan's having charge of a cannon on so exposed a situation, and of the seditions at Charles Town, are given from Hewit, who is not good authority in this part of our history. But I have not felt at liberty to reject his account altogether, from the par- tial corroboration in Chalmers' Pol. Ann., p. 304, Carr Col.
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diate distress of the colonists, a supply of provisions was brought from Barbadoes# and Virginia. But the proprietors themselves, though reluctant, had dis- patched provisions, with clothes and tools, for the encouragement of the industrious, and promised a yearly supply " to be had at moderate rates by those that would pay for them." In reply to the request for cattle, they told the colonists it was their design "to have planters there and not graziers." If they wished to stock .Carolina, they said, they could do better by sending over bailiffs and servants of their own, who would obey their orders, plant where they directed, and not as the settlers had done, take up more land than they could use, and after excluding others from their vicinity, complain of a want of neighbors.
The apprehensions of an attack by the Spaniards were not without foundation. The occupation of Port Royal, or its vicinity, was always regarded as an encroachment upon lands which they jealously claimed as their own. Occasionally servants deserted the English settlement and sought to reach St. Au- gustine, but were generally brought back by Indians sent in pursuit. Dennis Mahoon had been "stript naked to his waist, and received thirty-nine lashes upon his naked back ;" and John Radcliffe, on suspi- cion of a similar desertion, had been kept for a long time in irons, and no accuser appearing had been con- demned to five months servitude beyond his term of contract. James Willoughby and Thomas Munristu
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* For the flourishing state of Barbadoes, see Martin's Brit. Col., vol. 2, pp. 324-328. Whites, 50,000; Negroes and colored, 100,000, in 1674. In 1666, 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry.
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were tried for the same offense. On the other hand, many servants who had been active and faithful were rewarded by the grand council; and some by their industry soon acquired wealth and respectability in the colony. But it was left for Brian Fitzpatrick, "a noted villain," to desert to the Spaniards at this time and inform them of the distressed condition of the settlers. An attacking party was immediately sent from the Spanish garrison, and took post at St. Helena Island. But on the approach of Colonel Godfrey and fifty volunteers, they retreated to St. Augustine, to await a more favorable opportunity to effect their cherished design of destroying the Eng- lish settlement.
The seasonable arrival of the proprietors' ship re- stored animation to the colonists. It is worthy of remark, however, that there appears never to have been so great a scarcity of food as to endanger the lives of the people. There were failures at first in attempting to raise such grains and fruits as were not best adapted to the soil and climate. But fish and oysters, an abundance of game in the woods, the fertility of the land in producing Indian corn and peas, and the neighborhood of other English colonies, were sufficient to insure the settlement from any fear of starvation. Even in the times of greatest com- plaint, in 1673, provisions were exported to Barba- docs. That Governor Yeamans engaged too exten- sively in his exports was perhaps the chief cause of the clamors and discontent of the populace. In a few years after these events, although wine, olive oil, and silk were not among its exports, the colony
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produced abundantly various fruits, and corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas, turnips, parsnips, carrots, po- tatos, and "twenty sorts of pulse, not raised in Eng- land, all of them very good food, insomuch that the English garden is not regarded." It was then, too, the custom of the planters to engage the services of an Indian hunter for less than twenty shillings a year, who could supply a family of thirty persons "with as much venison and fowl as they can well eat." Some planters had as many as eight hundred head of cattle, and salted beef began to be exported. Hogs were raised with little trouble; "Barbadoes, Jamaica, and New England affording a constant good price for their pork, by which means they get where- withal to build them more convenient houses, and to purchase servants and negro slaves." [Wilson, 1682.] From the earliest period also, pipe staves and lum- ber were exported to the West Indies, and sugar, molasses, and rum received in return. In November, 1680, there rode at anchor in Charles Town harbor sixteen trading vessels.
These were some of the results of the wise man- agement of Colonel West, whom the proprietors declared in May, 1674, the "fittest man" to be governor of Carolina. His annual salary as keeper of the stores was £60, commencing in August, 1669; and his salary as governor from August, 1674, was £100 per annum. In March, 1677, in a settlement of his accounts, there remained due £415 9s. 7d., in payment of which the proprietors relinquished to him their plantation and debts in the colony. His fidelity however to the proprietors, notwithstanding their
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vacillating and injudicious policy, did not make him overlook the interests of the people. During his first administration, on one occasion there were only two deputies in the province, and cases being before the grand council for decision, he voted that they should be decided by the members present, although his in- structions strictly enjoined that three deputies should be present besides the governor. In another instance, in an action for debt, it was pleaded that the plaintiff had not "subscribed his religion" according to the Fundamental Constitutions. But the council voted unanimously that such a plea should be no bar to the recovery of the debt.
No governor ever enjoyed in the province so unin- terrupted a popularity as Col. West, although he was the medium through which it was sought to impose several disagreeable measures upon the people. By their charter the proprietors had the right to estab- lish the episcopal form of worship, with such tolera- tion of dissenters as they should think proper. The Fundamental Constitutions being probably prepared in part by Shaftesbury, who had no predilection for any particular form of worship, and by Locke, whose opinions were most liberal in matters of religion, nothing was ordained in them in favor of episcopacy; but on the contrary, an unlimited freedom was pro- minently granted to all sects and religions. Besides the wisdom of this course, its policy was calculated to gain settlers from the dissenters, who at that period were the weak and oppressed party in England. Accordingly a large majority, perhaps three-fourths, of the original settlers were dissenters, and willingly
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accepted the Fundamental Constitutions which were sent out with Governor Sayle, solemnly ratified by the signatures and seals of six of the lords proprietors, who were all that were then in England." As the tenure of land and the naturalization of immigrants depended on their signing these constitutions, the people, to the number of several hundred, gave their oath to support them as the law under which they were to live. But seven of the eight proprietors were adherents of episcopacy ; and it appears that after the colony was sent forth, they determined to introduce, among other alterations, the following clause into the constitutions :
" As the country comes to be sufficiently planted and distributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the parliament to take care for the building of churches and the public maintenance of divines, to be employed in the exercise of religion according to the Church of England ; which being the only true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the king's dominion, is so also of Carolina; and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive a public mainte- nance by grant of parliament."
The constitutions so altered, and bearing date the 1st March, 1670, were printed, and declared to be the true and unalterable form of government. A copy was sent to the colonies at Albemarle and Ash- ley River, for the acceptance of the settlers. Col. West was acting as governor on the reception of this second set of the constitutions in February, 1673,
* See Appendix
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and in obedience to his instructions presented them to the parliament; but all the people had been already for three years sworn to the first set, and the parliament refused to accept them in the place of those of the 21st July, 1669 .*
It was a strange infatuation on the part of the pro- prietors to alter their original guarantees in a way that was sure to irritate the people, especially as they were well aware that the condition of the province would not yet admit of the establishment of either set of constitutions. At the same time, with a re- markable legislative activity, they sent out " tempo- rary laws," and " agrarian laws," dated June 21st, 1672.
"Since the paucity of nobility," they said, "will not permit the Fundamental Constitutions presently to be put in practice, it is necessary for the supply of that defect that some temporary laus should in the mean time be made for the better ordering of affairs, till by a sufficient number of inhabitants of all degrees, the government of Carolina can be adminis- tered according to the form established in the Funda- mental Constitutions. We the lords proprietors of Carolina upon due consideration have agreed to these following."
The first, second, and third articles repeat only what has been before mentioned of the palatine and other proprietors nominating their representatives or deputies ; admitting the nobility as members of the grand council ; appointing the chief officers in the
* Letter to Sothell, Appendix.
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province ; and the powers of the council, the quorum of which should be the governor and six councilors " whereof three at least shall be deputies of propri- etors." 4. In case of the death or departure of a deputy, his place should be supplied by the eldest of the councilors chosen by parliament until another deputy be appointed. 5. Parliament to consist. of the governor, deputies, nobility, and twenty delegates of the freeholders, to be assembled, and to make laws agreeably to the provisions of the Fundamental Con- stitutions. 6. All acts of such parliament to cease at the end of the first parliament convened after the constitutions should be put in force. 7. As much of the constitutions as practicable to be the rule of proceeding.
The agrarian temporary laws, which are twenty- three in number, are concerned entirely with the interests of the proprietors and nobility, and the pro- portionate settlement of their landed estates. The preamble again announces the principle of the former laws in these words, "the whole foundation of the government is settled upon a right and equal dis- tribution of land." One fifth of all the land is secured to the proprietors, one fifth to the nobility, and the rest to the people. Not because the people were eager to appropriate more than their share of the boundless forests at the outskirts of which they were toiling for subsistence, but that the proprietors and their constituted aristocracy might be sure of a permanent and preponderating power in the colonial administration.
In the preceding narrative of the acts and policy of
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the proprietors, may be observed the seeds of oppo- sition and party differences. While the lords of Carolina were legislating as for a populous empire, the people were so few that the names of all might be written upon a single page. But they knew that their liberties were secured by the charter which required their consent in the enactment of all laws and constitutions. To the plan of government de- vised by the proprietors they had at first assented, if not in assembly, at least individually, and were fully bound by its provisions. They murmured not at the appointment of landgraves and caciques ; they did not oppose the grant of large estates to these nobles, nor the right of demanding an annual quit- rent ; nor did they question the introducing into practice of as much of the Fundamental Constitu- tions as the circumstances of the colony admitted. But since the arrival of Sayle, vessel after vessel brought new instructions and laws, harsh complaints, and, finally, an arbitrary repudiation of the first con- stitutions ; and, step by step, the affections of the people were alienated and their confidence and fidel- ity destroyed. There was needed but an increase of population for forming two parties, the one, advo- cates of the Church of England and of the power of the proprietors ; the other, promoters of .popular privileges and interests, and holding the charter to be a sufficient basis of government without the Fundamental Constitutions.
The first accession to the number of original set- tlers had come from Barbadoes and Cape Fear. Im- migrants in small parties continued to arrive from
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England. James Town was peopled with the Dutch colony from Nova Belgia, or New York ; they, how- ever, soon wisely abandoned their town and settled among the other inhabitants. The proprietors were not remiss in efforts to augment the population of Carolina. In 1672, liberal concessions were offered to freemen and servants from Ireland, who would settle in the province, and particularly if they would go in sufficient numbers to make up a community, and form a town by themselves, "wherein they may have the free exercise of their religion according to their own discipline." In June, 1676, a whole colony of 12,000 acres was promised to Mr. John Berkly, Simon Perkins, Anthony Laine, and John Pettitt, upon their landing in Carolina.
In 1674, a part of the proprietors formed a plan of settling a plantation at their private expense on the " Edisto or Ashipoo" River, or on " Loch Island," as they also called the place. Andrew Percival was appointed governor of it, and received the necessary instructions for his conduct in office, and Gov. West was told to give him every assistance, and to affix the seal of the province to such grants of land as he should make. The scheme did not succeed, no doubt from the fact that the settlement on Loch Island would have been too weak an interposition between the unfriendly tribes of Westoes and Cussa- toes and the colonists on Ashley River, who, though in a securer position, were not altogether safe from their attacks. This design was abandoned, and Per- cival appointed, in June, 1675, " Register of Berk- ley County, and the parts adjoining." The plan, it 11
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is probable, originated with the Earl of Shaftesbury, who soon after at his otvn expense engaged Dr. Henry Woodward to enter upon the discovery of the country of the Westoes and Cussatoes. One result of this visit was a treaty of peace and friendship between these nations and the English in Carolina. A comparison also of the strength and resources of these Indians and the still feeble colonists, induced the proprietors, (as they said,) to shield the latter by restricting their intercourse with the tribes westward of Charles Town. . Too much already had the safety of the settlers been hazarded by separating their dwelling places, and, as it were, inviting an assault by an exposure of their weakness.
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